The number of businesses taking part in a voluntary program that allows them to verify electronically their newly hired employees’ legal authorization to work in the United States is soaring, the federal government said Tuesday.
About 52,000 employers are now using a Web-based system, known as E-Verify, compared with 14,265 a year ago. The system has been growing in the past year by 1,000 employers a week, said the United States Citizenship and Immigrations Services, which runs the program with the Social Security Administration. ...
About 93 percent of the employees checked in the program receive authorization in a manner of seconds
Let us do a little math here. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics there are 138.1 million people employed in the United States. Seven percent of 138.1 million is 9,670,000 people whose names and Social Security numbers would not match. If this program became mandatory-- and that is what the Bush Administration and many in Congress wish in order to cut illegal immigration -- those people would be descending upon offices of the Social Security Administration and they would rightly regard their problem as urgent since it would threaten their continued employment.
The Social Security Administration is not ready for this.
Congressman Heath Shuler (D-NC) is planning to force Congress to vote on his bill that would make E-Verify mandatory, so that every worker is checked by the system within 4 years. Advocates for the elderly and people with disabilities need to let their Congressional reps know how this would affect them.
ReplyDeleteYes it should be mandatory. What if those 9 million errors are the illegal aliens that are working. SSA needs to open more Card Centers in the meantime.
ReplyDeleteAll SSA can do is to tell them, simply and directly, "I'm sorry, there is no one here to help you with that matter--have a nice day."
ReplyDeleteAnd give them the phone/address of their congressman. No staff means no help.
From your exerpt, 7 percent don't get "authorization in a matter of seconds".
ReplyDeleteQuestion1: What does that really mean?
Answer1: About 9.7 million people aren't authorized immediately.
Question2: Are these people authorized within some other reasonable length of time (like an hour later, a day later, etc.)?
Answer2: Probably some are.
Question3: For those who are not authorized by the system in any reasonable length of time, how many are illegal?
Answer3: Who knows, that is what this is supposed to find out. They estimate 12 million illegal immigrants in the US, most of whom are of working age. So 9 million is NOT an unexpected number.
Question4: Why isn't there an immediate match? Doesn't this mean something is either (a) wrong with SSA records or (b) wrong with the employer's records? And doesn't this need to get figured out so that there can be an accurate reporting of wages?
Answer4: Yes, this is something that needs to get worked out. If not immediately, then there will be other problems when people aren't credited with the work they did.
If this were a good study, it would try the system on a sample of known legal workers, then report the failure rate for that population. THAT is the important number.
Other than that, I agree, SSA field offices are not prepared for more customers/patrons/whatever they should be called.